Ratings and Reviews by Jeremy Freese

Highly imaginative horror game that takes place in a girl's school.

I played this game with a friend while driving on a cross-country trip, with her reading the output and then us discussing the commands. For that purpose, this game was *absolutely delightful*, and maybe the highlight of the entire car trip. Would I have enjoyed it as much if I had played it on my own? Probably not. To be honest, I think I would have been turned off by some aspects of the random combat system and the prose at the beginning. Which would have been too bad, as there is a lot to this game and it repays getting into it. So, if you are in the mood to approach a horror game with a bemused and open spirit, this game could be great fun. Otherwise, you might want to wait for that mood to strike before taking this on.

(About 3 minutes to play.) This game is a political satire in which you are an oppressed white male trapped on a college campus with several religious books and a lighter. The title indicates what happens when you burn one of them; the fate of what happens with the others represents the perceived moral inconsistency that is the basic satirical content of the game.

Not consistent with my politics, experience on college campuses, or experience with individuals of Islamic faith, but the author does deserve praise for using the interactive fiction form toward conveying a larger social message, which is surprisingly rare given the possibilities of the medium.

Still, here is what I would have loved to see from this particular author in this game: a "xyzzy" command that, when implemented, changed the setting from a college campus and the title from "Burn the Koran and You Die" to having the setting be a secret cabal convention of the IF Old Ones and the title be "Criticize Inform 7 and You Die." Please, implement this.

The "genre" being games with one implemented, but repeated, action. Imagine Pick Up the Phone Book And Die, only where you don't die, or at least not until the tenth time you've picked up the phone booth. Not my thing--and apparently from the one-star review, also not the author's, which might raise the question of why he posted it--but IF is a world of varied tastes.

The game could have been coded in 20 minutes; the author might have instead spent those 20 minutes learning new capabilities available in the I7 documentation.

I know that ever since the rise of chessboxing there have been those who clamor for work that combines professional wrestling and interactive fiction, but this looks like a fake entry.